PRE Seminar 2

1. Dialectic of Enlightenment
 
a. What is "Enlightenment"?
 Enlightenment can refere to the full comprehension of a situation, in a way it's knowledge, awareness and wisdom. A way of distance oneself from myths and fears.

b. What is "dialectic"?
 A method which focuses on argument to resolve disagreement and a way of reaching enlightenment you can possibly argue.

c. What is "nominalism" and why is it an important concept in the text?
Nominalism is a theory which denies the real existence of any general entities such as, species, properties, sets or other categories.The only things that exist are the ones that are concrete.

d. What is the meaning and function of "myth" in Adorno and Horkheimer's argument?
The meaning of a myth is to replace a current unknown thing with something to make people feel safer. Even if a thing isn't true it's better to have something (a myth) then not knowing at all.

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2. "The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproductivity"

a. In the beginning of the essay, Benjamin talks about the relation between "superstructure" and "substructure" in the capitalist order of production. What do the concepts "superstructure" and "substructure" mean in this context and what is the point of analyzing cultural production from a Marxist perspective?

The base of the socity wich everything is built on and relies on is the substructure. In the text it's for example machines, factories and so forth. If you zoom out one step you find the superstructure which is the thing built upon this substructure and that is not directly connected with it. Examples of these things is the laws, regulations, families, and cultural production. In Marxist point of view these to structures are connected. Both is relevant for the society to work properly.

b. Does culture have revolutionary potentials (according to Benjamin)? If so, describe these potentials. Does Benjamin's perspective differ from the perspective of Adorno & Horkheimer in this regard?

Yes i think so, culture is like very changeble much like technology, and they often can come hand in hand. When the camera technology came it revolutionized the world of the art. However i think Adorno & Horkheimer sees it different from Benjamin in the way that Benjamin belives culure is based on a form of  originality while Adorno & Horkheimer is more in favor of the technical enlightenment way. They think revolution is more in terms of new techniques and knowledges.


c. Benjamin discusses how people perceive the world through the senses and argues that this perception can be both naturally and historically determined. What does this mean? Give some examples of historically determined perception (from Benjamin's essay and/or other contexts).

The natural percpetion is the one that we have from the beginning that comes from our mind. They way we experiance the world and this can be different from person to person. However perception can also be based on history and events that we have seen. This could change the way we percieve things. It could be wars, revolutions or good and bad experiances from many different thing, maybe marrige is one thing that could give both very happy and bad perceptions based on person history.


d. What does Benjamin mean by the term "aura"? Are there different kinds of aura in natural objects compared to art objects?

An aura is the uniqness of an object the thing that doesn't make it alike to anything other the originality you could say. For example a teather play is never really the same while a movie is an exact copy. Arth objects have the auro of that you know it's truly unique while a natural object can be percieved very different from the contemplator. Especially in culture so yes i belive that natural objects also can have an aura however not in the exact same way as art for example.